This Day in 1913 in The Record: Dec. 30, 1913

Tuesday, Dec. 30, 1913. Troy’s New York State League basketball team is closing fast on first-place Utica, but third-place Cohoes is doing the hard work of actually beating the Indians.

The Spindle City five host Utica tonight while Troy travels to last-place Brooklyn. Led by team captain Morgan O’Brien, Cohoes seeks a second-straight win over the Indians. Last weekend, Cohoes handed Utica its first home loss of the season.

In Brooklyn, Troy holds up its end with an easy 29-18 win. While The Record doesn’t send a sportswriter downstate with the team, “According to the dispatch received from Brooklyn … Troy played a remarkable game, exhibiting some of the cleverest teamwork and passing ever witnessed in the borough.”

Veteran center Ed Wachter leads all scorers with ten points for the two-time defending champions. He’s come out of retirement to keep the Collar City five in contention.

At the Cohoes armory, “basketball was played, but not in the form prescribed by its founders.” Since the sport is less than 25 years old, it’d be easy to verify whether the founders meant basketball to be “a question of weight and strength on most occasions.”

Tonight’s Cohoes-Utica game is more wide-open than the Christmas double-header between Cohoes and Troy. That’s because referee Ward Brennan, who officiated the holiday games, is in Brooklyn with the Trojans, while George Tilden keeps order in Cohoes.

Tilden “allowed an open game and called fouls only on rare occasions or when they could not be possibly overlooked and this, of course, naturally makes the play fast,” our sportswriter notes, “As a whole it was the kind of game liked by the Mill City fans, there being nothing rough enough to hurt the sport.”

Cohoes outfouls Utica, 14-13, but the Indians are lousy at the line, sinking only three free throws. “If Utica has been able to find the basket on its chances from the chalk line in the basketball game,” our scribe observes, “it would have won.”

Apart from dreadful foul shooting, our writer claims that Utica “at various stages of the event played rings around” Cohoes. The stats don’t support that claim. Cohoes ‘s smothering physical defense holds the league leaders to four points in the entire first half. Since Cohoes only puts up nine s, the game remains within reach for Utica at halftime.

Utica’s chances fade after Cohoes opens the second half with an 8-0 run. The Indians outscore Cohoes the rest of the way but can’t quite climb out of the hole. The 23-15 result leaves Troy just a half-game out of their customary spot on top of the standings.